


Our Little Secret

by hastyquickbeam



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Canon Divergent, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Galaxy Garrison, Hunk and Pidge geeking out, Pidge pretending to be a boy, Sassy Hunk, School, but stays close to canon, snarky pidge
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-12
Updated: 2018-02-04
Packaged: 2019-03-03 20:14:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13348686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hastyquickbeam/pseuds/hastyquickbeam
Summary: Pidge, Hunk and Lance become friends as they start out at Galaxy Garrison. Hunk begins to guess that Pidge is hiding a secret, and he intends to find out.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Huge thanks to ladymac111 for going above and beyond beta work for this fic, She not only edited and corrected mistakes but also suggested some entirely new sentences.

Commander Iverson stood at a podium before a roomful of assembled cadets in neatly organized chairs. He cleared his throat and began to speak in an important sounding voice.

“Welcome to the Galaxy Garrison. Here you will continue a grand tradition. Galaxy Garrison exists to turn cadets like you into the next generation of astro-explorers. You came here as boys and girls, but you will leave as men and women.”

Pidge squirmed in her seat. Everyone in this room thought she was a boy. Katie Holt was banned from Galaxy Garrison, so she had needed to become someone else. Pidge Gunderson had never been kicked out of Galaxy Garrison and he had absolutely no connection to Katie. He also technically didn’t exist, but only she knew that.

Commander Iverson droned on about responsibility, respect, and hard work but Pidge didn’t hear any of it; her head was spinning. _Why did I think I could do this? How can I keep this secret for four years? What am I doing here?_ She lost track of time as her thoughts consumed her.

Suddenly, the room broke into applause and everyone around Pidge stood up. Apparently the speech was over. She jerkily stood up and joined the applause, hoping no one had noticed she hadn’t been paying attention.

Eventually the noise died down and the Cadets began talking amongst themselves. Pidge drifted around, looking for a conversation to join but didn’t find one. She didn’t much feel like talking and she especially didn’t trust her voice not to betray her secret. After a while she found herself standing alone on the side of the room. She felt awkward and out of place.

“I guess you don’t like crowds either?” 

“What?” Pidge looked at the source of the unexpected voice. It was a large, tall boy with brown skin and a kind face.

“It looks like you don’t like crowds,” the large boy said again.

“Oh. No, I don’t know how to act around these people.”

“Me neither,” said the tall boy. “My name’s Hunk.”

“Pidge”

“Well, It’s nice to meet you, Pidge.”

“It’s nice to meet you too,”

They stood in silence. Pidge still felt awkward, but it was better to be awkward with someone than alone. Eventually she thought of something to say”

“Why did you want to come to Galaxy Garrison?”

“Me?” he seemed surprised at being spoken to again, “I’ve always been good with machines, and I’m here for the engineering department so I can study and train on the most advanced tech available. How about you?”

 _I need to find my father and brother._ “Because I want to explore new worlds and be of service to humanity.” She had practiced this answer before today; she wasn’t completely unprepared.

“Wow, you have such a good reason for being here. It makes my reason seem selfish and small.”

“No, your reason is good. Don’t worry about it.” If only he could know how selfish her reasons for being here were. She was here to find her brother and father who had been lost on the Kerberos mission. With the access and knowledge she could gain here, she just might have a chance of finding them.

She looked up at him. It was crazy, but she found herself wanting to tell him her secrets. To trust him completely. _Think of something to say. Think._ “I’ve always been fascinated be space, so you see I am being selfish too.”

“I don’t know, I still think I’m the one being selfish.”

“Fine, your reason for coming here is bad and you should feel bad.”

“That’s more like it,” said Hunk, chuckling. “I’m glad I met someone I can talk to.”

“Me too.” Pidge smiled and let her shoulders relax.


	2. Chapter 2

Hunk’s alarm blared and he yanked himself out of the metal bed in his dormitory room. It was 5:45, so he had fifteen minutes to get into uniform and assemble with the other cadets in the main courtyard. Yawning so much he thought he might fall over, he pulled on his uniform and straightened it in the mirror. 

He looked at the clock again and saw it was 5:55. That’s cutting it too close, he thought as he hurried out of his door and down the hall. Thankfully he didn’t get lost; there were other cadets to follow and apparently someone knew where to go. He entered the courtyard to see what looked like most of the cadets standing in formation in the center of the open space. He hurried to join them and had two minutes to spare before Commander Iverson called them to attention.

The Commander walked through the lines of cadets, here and there shouting at them to stand upright or straighten their uniform. Then he returned to the front of the formation and began shouting to them: “Tomorrow you will all standing properly in formation at 0600 hours. I won’t have cadets slouching or wearing their uniforms sideways.” After a brief pause he continued, “once I dismiss you you will go to breakfast then be at your classes at 0700 hours. You have your schedules. You will be promptly on time to every class and I expect exemplary behavior from each of you as befits a military teaching facility of this caliber.”

It was at this moment that another cadet ambled into the courtyard. He didn’t seem to realize that he was fully 10 minutes late. The other cadets stood rigid and scared while the boy casually walked to the back of the formation to take his place. During this time Commander Iverson was standing stone still, jaw clamped shut and face turning red.

Once the boy was in place Commander Iverson walked through the rows of students until he was standing right in front of the unfortunate boy. “Name!” he barked.

“Lance McClain.”

“That’s Lance McClain, Sir!” Iverson bellowed.

“Oh, sorry.” Lance looked frightened now and stood silent as commander Iverson glared at him. “Oh wait, you mean you want me to say it that way now. Well I’ll just…”

“Name!” Iverson barked again.

“Lance McClain, Sir!”

Iverson seemed satisfied with that because now he went on to shout. “Your behavior is unacceptable. If you continue like this, I will personally see to it that you are expelled. Do you understand me?

“Yes sir!” shouted Lance.

Commander Iverson walked back to the front of the formation, but he wasn’t finished with Lance yet. “Cadets! You will stand at attention for fifteen minutes while Lance thinks about the importance of being on time!”

There were grumbles and many of the cadets turned to glare at Lance. “Face forward and stand at attention, cadets!” Iverson barked at them. He then stood at attention himself, and waited for the time to pass.

Hunk looked forward and stood up straight as the minutes crept by. Silence filled the courtyard. Time passed terribly slowly for Hunk and he was sorely tempted to look back at Lance, but he kept his face perfectly straight forward.

Ten minutes in, Hunk started to feel truly uncomfortable. His back was sore, his knees were aching, and his neck and shoulders were tight from holding such an erect posture. People weren’t meant to stand still like this. He noticed that some cadets were shaking out their legs and he was about to do the same when Iverson shouted “Stand still cadets!” After that no one moved.

Finally the time came and Commander Iverson addressed them again. “Hopefully by now Cadet McClain will have understood the importance of being on time.” He went silent and let that statement hang in the air, then barked: “Cadets, dismissed!”

The assembled cadets breathed a shared sigh of relief. Most of them hurried off to breakfast, but a few held back and sent murderous glances at Lance. Hunk felt sorry for the guy, and kind of wanted to go comfort him, but didn’t feel like he could stand becoming the center of so much negative attention. Instead he joined the flow of students headed to the cafeteria.

On the way there Hunk noticed Pidge so he shuffled through the crowd to join him. “Hey Pidge,” he said in greeting.

“Oh. Hey.”

After the ordeal they had just been through, Hunk couldn’t think of anything to say, and apparently neither could Pidge, so they walked in silence until they reached the cafeteria.

To Hunk’s surprise, breakfast was actually rather decent. It was just toast, sausages, and scrambled eggs, but the sausages were well seasoned and the eggs were properly cooked and still hot. One of the things Hunk had been worried about was living without home cooking. His mom had taught him to cook since he was young and he loved it so much that he had done most of the cooking for the family over the summer break before starting at Galaxy Garrison. He would always miss home cooking, but with the food here being decent enough, he figured he could survive.

Hunk and Pidge sat down at an open area of one of the long tables that ran the length of the cafeteria. For a small boy, Pidge had a lot on his plate. They settled in and began talking about their classes for the day. “I have calculus first,” said Hunk.

“Oh cool, me too,” said Pidge.

“I’m kind of worried that it will be hard.”

“Oh don’t worry, calculus isn’t as confusing as it looks, and anyway I can help you out if you need it.”

“Really? Thanks so much. I’ll probably need to hold you to that.”

“Hey, what are friends for?”

“Oh we’re friends now?” said Hunk happily. He supposed they actually were friends. It was good to have a friend in this unfamiliar place.

But now Pidge seemed worried. “That is, I don’t mean, If you don’t, that is you don’t necessarily need to, I just thought.” he trailed off.

“Pidge what’s wrong?”

“We don’t have to be friends if you don’t want to.”

“Pidge don’t be silly, of course I want to be friends with you.”

At this Pidge half smiled.

“Speaking of friends,” Hunk said, “I think Lance could use a friend right now.”

“You mean the kid who made us all late for breakfast? Screw that!”

“No, I wanna be nice to him. I think he really needs it now.”

“Hunk, you are too good for this world.” A glint of admiration shone through her snarky tone.

Hunk was taken aback. He didn’t know what to say to that so he just kept quiet for a while. “Anyway,” he said, breaking the silence, “I hope I can find him sometime today.”

“Well it won’t be now, we need to get to class. I don’t think I’ll ever be late to anything again.”

“I don’t think anyone here will ever be late again,” Hunk said seriously. Pidge smiled and they made their way to class.


	3. Chapter 3

After breakfast, Pidge walked with Hunk to their first class, calculus. Pidge had to struggle to keep up with Hunk’s long legs, but she was too proud to say anything about it, so she tried to pretend like she wasn’t practically skipping to keep pace.

They got to the classroom plenty early, but Pidge noticed that Lance was already sitting in the back, clearly determined to be on time. Lance saw them and then quickly looked away, lips slightly pursed and arms tightly crossed, trying to pretend he wasn’t there. This attempt wasn’t very successful, as he was rather tall and stood out against the gray wall.  And was, well, a person.

Pidge decided to give Lance some space, so she sat towards the front and Hunk joined her. They had some time to chat while the rest of the class filtered in; Hunk was worrying about the subject matter again.

“I don’t know if I can do it. I mean I’ve been pretty good in math up to now, but I’ve heard that college-level calculus is different from all the earlier classes. What if I can’t figure it out?”

“Relax Hunk, you’ll be fine,” Pidge said, but she felt less sure of it than she sounded. If he really had so little confidence, that would make it even harder for him. “Anyway, stop worrying  about it and wait until it actually starts. That’s the only way you can know if there’s a real problem.”

“Hey, that makes sense,” said Hunk, slightly sarcastic, and sounding marginally better.

“I usually do.” Pidge smirked.

Students continued to enter and Pidge noticed the room was nearly full even though the class didn’t start for another five minutes. In high school she had never seen students be so punctual. Apparently everyone really was determined to be on time.

“What do you have next?” Hunk asked.

“Physical Education. Blah.”

“Oh, I have that too.” Hunk sounded excited, but then his voice turned sober. “I’m no good at that either.” This was something they had in common, so they had plenty to complain about together. It felt satisfying and the time passed quickly.

Pidge looked up as Professor Harris entered the room promptly three minutes before the class started and organized his notes on the desk up front. Since the professor wasn’t saying anything yet, she returned to her complaining session with Hunk.

Finally, at exactly 7 am, the Professor stood up and addressed the class. Pidge marveled at how obsessed this place was with punctuality. 

“Okay class, I am Professor Harris and this is Math 120, Calculus 1. We will start with derivatives.” The professor turned his back to the class and began writing an equation on the board. Pidge recognized it at once; she had taken calculus in high school. It was the definition of the derivative in limit notation. Once Professor Harris had written the equation, he pointed out the different parts of it one by one and explained each, sometimes moving to the right of the board to elaborate.

Pidge thought it was a very engaging lecture, and fifteen minutes in she had already learned some tidbits she hadn’t known before. As the lecture continued, Professor Harris discussed how derivatives related to slope, velocity, and rate of change. This was also familiar to Pidge, but again she learned some new perspectives on the material.

Overall, she was satisfied with the lecture. But when it ended and she turned to Hunk, she saw that he didn’t feel the same way at all. His mouth was open and his face was plastered with disbelief and confusion. Pidge again worried about whether he would be able to understand this material, and hoped she wouldn’t regret agreeing to be his study partner.

As they left the class Hunk didn’t say anything, and looked like he didn’t want to talk. Pidge noticed that the rest of the students filing out looked about as confused as Hunk had. What was wrong? This was supposed to be an elite military academy. How did none of these students understand a basic calculus lecture? She decided to save that quandary for another time and followed Hunk into the hallway.

They had to change into their exercise uniforms before Phys Ed, so they went their separate ways to their dormitory rooms. Pidge thought, not for the first time, how grateful she was to have had the forethought to assign herself to a single room; pretending to be a boy would have been much harder if she had to sneak to the bathroom and cram into a stall every time she wanted to change clothes.

Wearing her ugly but reasonably comfortable exercise uniform, she made her way through the halls towards Phys Ed, which would be meeting on the parade ground. She was definitely not excited about it -- her strong point was computers, not sports. Still, she wasn’t going to do something as stupid as skipping class, even if it was a ridiculous unnecessary class that shouldn’t even exist after high school.

When Pidge got to the parade ground, she wasn’t surprised to see Lance already there, along with quite a few other cadets that she recognized. He was standing alone once again, and again pretending not to exist. The other cadets seemed happy to follow along with this fiction. Pidge was still pissed at Lance for making them late to breakfast, but now she understood why Hunk had felt sorry for him.

At precisely 9 am, according to the large clock above the entrance to the main building, the instructor blew her whistle and the cadets gathered around her. “Cadets, welcome to Physical Education.  I’m Ms. Krueger. While you are here to train your minds, it is equally important that you train your bodies. You will be doing a variety of exercises, but to start you will run laps around the parade ground. Begin!” At this she blew her whistle, one fierce _peep!_ , and the cadets set off jogging clockwise around the parade ground.

Why did it have to be running? With her short legs and slightly-crappy lungs, running was not a good activity for Pidge. She struggled to keep up, but soon fell to the back of the pack. Hunk, also fell back and was about even with her. Frustratingly, she noticed that Lance seemed to be having a grand time. He was out towards the front of the pack and running gracefully.

PIdge and Hunk, meanwhile, were in a much sorrier state. Despite Hunk’s long legs, he was not making a whole lot of forward progress with each step, and Pidge was taking such short strides she felt like she was scooting forward. She wanted to complain to Hunk, but given the pain in her side and the way she was struggling to take in air, she figured that breathing was a higher priority than complaining. She glanced over at Hunk, who looked to be in an even worse state than she was; he was flushed, breathless, and seemed to be struggling to put one foot in front of the other.

By their third lap they were in the very back, and had already been lapped by Lance and a few of the other cadets. Pidge was positively suffering now, and desperately wanted to know how much longer this would last, because before too long she knew she’d get to the stage where she felt like she was dying.

Just when she thought she couldn’t go any further, Ms. Krueger shouted at them to “Keep up!” Pidge groaned and heard Hunk do the same, but they both kept pushing and at least managed to maintain their current pace.

The run seemed to go on forever, but Pidge was determined to keep up with Hunk; her pride was stronger than the cramps in her legs and the stitch in her side. Apparently Hunk was also determined to keep pace with her, so they ran side by side until finally the instructor blew her whistle for everyone to stop. Pidge gratefully came to a jerky halt and bent over slightly there feeling slightly dizzy.

Hunk, however, really didn’t look good. He was turning purple and looked like he was going to be sick. Pidge stepped away just in time to avoid it when Hunk dropped his head and threw up.

Ms. Krueger hurried over. “Cadet, are you all right?”

“I’m okay,” he replied, kind of gasping. “I mean I feel sorta  terrible, but no, I’m okay.”

“Good.” Then she raised her voice, though she was still addressing Hunk. “Cadet, don’t push yourself so far beyond your abilities. Next time be more responsible.”

Pidge was aghast -- this was terribly unfair, since Ms. Krueger had just five minutes ago told her and Hunk to go faster. But she knew better than to say anything about it.

“Cadets,” Ms. Krueger shouted, “assemble on the north side of the parade ground.” Pidge was finding it harder and harder to keep quiet, but then Ms. Krueger turned to Hunk and said with some possibly-genuine kindness in her voice, “You can go clean up. I’ll call the janitorial staff to take care of this.”

“Thank you,” Hunk managed to say, and he stumbled off, looking utterly defeated.

Pidge joined the other cadets on the side of the parade ground. She thought she was done with this fitness hell for the day, but no: Ms. Krueger demonstrated the proper technique for push-ups and crunches, then set them loose on the grass on the north side of the parade grounds to do 150 of each, in three sets of 50. Pidge knew before she started that she couldn’t do anywhere near that many, but hoped her taskmaster would allow her to “not push herself too far beyond her abilities.”

When the class was finally finished Pidge was too exhausted and sore to be angry. Her shirt was more sweat than fabric and her legs were as wobbly as overcooked spaghetti. She stumbled to her room and collapsed on the bed without even bothering to take her shoes and glasses off. She was glad she had an hour free before her next class, and for most of that time she didn’t move an inch. Even though she was extremely sweaty and gross, it was worth it to not have to _move_ for a minute.  She would face the next challenge when she no longer had a choice in the matter.


	4. Chapter 4

By the time he had to go to history, Hunk had cleaned up and regained some of his dignity, but he still felt apprehensive about class. He had felt really stupid during that calculus lecture, and he wasn’t used to feeling stupid. He hoped Military History Survey would go better, but he had a sinking feeling that it wouldn’t.

When he got to the classroom he wasn’t surprised to see Lance, early and hiding in the back, just like last time. Pidge wasn’t there yet, so he took an open seat in the middle. He looked around the classroom and smiled at a few cadets he hadn’t met yet, but no one looked like they wanted to talk.

When Pidge arrived, he was walking gingerly -- apparently his legs were pretty sore. Hunk felt marginally better knowing someone else was also suffering from all the running, but then he kicked himself for feeling good about Pidge’s suffering.

The professor arrived precisely three minutes before the class started. It was uncanny how the professors kept arriving exactly this early. When the class started, he announced himself as Professor Armitage, then quickly began the lecture, about Ancient Greek military tactics. Hunk liked it; for starters, he didn’t get lost immediately, and he appreciated the detailed explanation of the way the soldiers arranged their spears and shields in a phalanx. It reminded him of a well-engineered machine.

After the lecture, Hunk looked over at Pidge, but he looked bored and tired, and his notebook was covered in scratchy doodles. As the other students began to leave, Hunk turned to him. “So … how did you like the lecture?”

Pidge checked that the Professor Armitage wasn’t listening, and rolled his eyes. “ _Boring_. Who cares how soldiers fought two thousand years ago? And you and I aren’t even going to be fighting. Engineers and communications officers don’t need to know about combat.”

Hunk was taken slightly aback. “I liked it,” he said uncertainly, suddenly feeling like he had gotten it wrong.

Pidge picked up his books. “More power to you, but I don’t think I’m going to like this class.”

Hunk wasn’t sure what else to say, so he collected his things. Lunch was next and he was definitely looking forward to that, especially after the morning’s terrible ordeal in phys ed. His body could use a little something pleasant, and food fit the bill.

Hunk led the way to the cafeteria. Halfway there he turned to ask Pidge about his next class, and was surprised when he didn’t see him. Hunk turned around all the way, and his friend was behind by half of the hallway, struggling to keep up while he limped along on his short, exhausted legs.

Hunk hurried back to him. “Pidge, I’m so sorry, I didn’t realized you were falling back. You should have told me you couldn’t keep up.”

“I didn’t want to bother you, and then I was too far back to say anything.”

Hunk wasn’t sure, but he thought Pidge sounded a bit pained. “Your poor legs. Are you all right?”

“I’m okay. At least I will be if I don’t have to run again this week.”

Hunk didn’t dare to mention that they would almost certainly have to run again in phys ed tomorrow. At least now they knew not to over-stress themselves, even if they weren’t sure how exactly to make that happen.

“You lead the way. I’ll match your pace.”

“Okay,” said Pidge, and they started walking again.

With Pidge hobbling along, they didn’t get to the cafeteria very quickly and there was already a sizable line for the food. They settled in for a long wait and Hunk’s thoughts turned to history again.

“I really do think that lecture was interesting. The way the troops stood in such perfect formation even facing battle, that was amazing. I think that kind of unity is one of the things they want us to learn here.”

Pidge laughed gently. “You don’t need to convince me. You’re allowed to like history, even if I don’t. And if you’re trying to convince me to like history, just give up now.”

“I’m not trying to convince you of anything, I’m just interested.” But he took the hint that Pidge didn’t want to talk about it. Instead he turned to complaining about phys ed, their favorite topic. That kept them occupied until they reached the food, which was spaghetti with marinara sauce, breadsticks, and a hearty salad. Hunk finally felt himself relax a little as he took an ample portion.

Food in hand, they headed out into the tables, and Hunk noticed Lance sitting alone. “Oh, there’s Lance, let’s go sit with him.”

“No way! That jerk made us late for breakfast.”

“I’m sure he’s not a jerk, he just make a mistake. And we should be nice to him; he probably needs it.”

Pidge looked like he was going to argue, but then just nodded curtly and followed Hunk to the table. Lance was poking unenthusiastically at his spaghetti and barely looked up when they sat down.

“Hey Lance,” Hunk said, trying to sound friendly.

“Hey,” mumbled Lance, now not bothering to look up at all.

He tried again. “How are you?”

At that Lance did look up, and eyed Hunk as though that was the stupidest question ever. Hunk did his best to keep an encouraging-but-not-creepy smile on his face until eventually Lance spoke.

“Everyone hates me.”

“No, Lance, we don’t hate you,” said Hunk, hoping he sounded reassuring.

“Yeah, we’re just furious with you and hope you trip and crack your skull, but we don’t hate you,” said Pidge helpfully.

Lance looked shocked but Hunk laughed. “Speak for yourself, Pidge. I don’t hate you and I’m not even mad at you any more. Iverson made you suffer enough already.”

Lance still looked wounded.

“Okay, fine, I’m pissed at you and I hope you trip and crack your teeth,” offered Pidge.

“I guess that’s a little better,” Lance said, but he still looked put out.

“Don’t worry,” Hunk said. “People will forget about this. Eventually someone will fuck up worse than you did, and then everyone can be mad at them.”

“I’ll probably be the one who fucks up worse than I did,” mumbled Lance.

“No way, there are plenty of stupid people here,” Hunk said, a bit too loudly.

“That’s true,” Pidge added grumpily. Lance still looked unconvinced.

Hunk wanted to help Lance feel better, but he wasn’t sure what else to say, so he decided to leave it at that. He turned to Pidge. “What classes do you have this afternoon?”

“Just computer science. Oh, and there’s intramural sports sign up after dinner.”

“Do you know what sport you’ll sign up for?” asked Lance, suddenly perking up.

“Um, ultimate frisbee, I guess,” Pidge answered. “It sounds like the easiest.”

“I don’t know,” said Hunk, “I don’t like the sound of _ultimate_.”

“It’s frisbee, how bad could it be?”

“Fair point. Well, I hadn’t decided which one I will do, but now I’ll probably sign up for ultimate frisbee too,” said Hunk. “What about you, Lance?”

“I’m doing ultimate frisbee too.” At this he actually smiled for the first time, a broad, winning smile. “I love ultimate!”

Hunk could see from the look on Pidge’s face that he wasn’t happy that Lance would be joining them in ultimate frisbee, and he hoped Lance hadn’t noticed. He decided to change the subject before Pidge made his disappointment too obvious.

“So what do you guys have after lunch?  I’ve got physics, it’s the first required course for engineers.”

“I’m stuck taking geo-cartography,” said Lance, no longer smiling. “Why did I have to be assigned cargo pilot?”

“What did you want?”

“I wanted to be a fighter pilot, obviously. But the program was full so they stuck me in cargo pilot,” he pouted. Hunk kind of wanted to say something comforting, but he wasn’t sure what to say.

“Wait, what is geo-cartography anyway?” Pidge asked.

Lance sighed.  “I don’t know. Guess I’ll just have to find out.”

“Well, tell me when you do, I honestly want to know.”

Hunk smiled; apparently Pidge’s natural curiosity was overcoming his loathing for Lance. Maybe things could be okay between his two new friends after all.

Once lunch was finished, they went their separate ways for their different classes. Hunk was looking forward to physics; he had been especially good at it in high school. When he got to the class and sat down, he was feeling optimistic.

The professor turned up precisely on time, which seemed to keep happening here. “Good afternoon, I’m Professor Freedman and this is Classical Physics 1. This is a calculus based physics course, so you will be using the concepts you’re learning in calculus this semester.”

_More like the concepts I won’t be learning,_ Hunk thought miserably. Professor Freedman was still talking, but Hunk found it impossible to concentrate with his mind stuck worrying about calculus. How was he going to learn a subject that was so complicated? How could he learn from a teacher whose lectures made no sense? How could he learn any physics if he had to learn calculus first?

Through the haze of his thoughts, Hunk noticed Professor Freedman say something about vectors, which he remembered from high school physics. With a great effort, he wrenched his attention back to the lecture. He listened as Professor Freedman demonstrated adding vectors, which he also remembered from high school. But then his thoughts wandered back to calculus, and he stared at the wall, berating himself for not understanding calculus and meanwhile totally missing the next ten minutes of the lecture.

As the class time passed by, he managed to catch maybe a quarter of what the professor was saying. By the end of the lecture Hunk’s mind was numb and he felt like he had gotten stupider over the past hour, which was just the opposite of what a lecture was supposed to do.

He wandered out of the class feeling lost. He thought about looking for Pidge to get started with study help in calculus, but didn’t feel up to it, not when his brain was mush. Instead he went to his room to relax for as long as he could. The next thing on his schedule was dinner at 5pm, so he would have some time. His roommate was out when he got to his room so he laid down on his lower bunk, feeling exhausted and miserable. At least it was quiet.

 


	5. Chapter 5

Pidge was not looking forward to her computer science class. She had tested out of the first required class, but she still had to take the second level class, Intermediate Programming Concepts. Cadets weren’t allowed to test out higher than this -- she had asked and then complained to no avail -- so she would be stuck in this one. From looking at the course summary it would all be stuff she already knew, so she was completely prepared to endure a boring and useless lecture.

Pidge could tell from the first five minutes of the lecture that the material was way below her level. The coding language was Java, which Pidge had known for years and the concepts the professor was introducing were more basic than intermediate. She sighed internally and settled in for a wasted hour.

But as the lecture went on, she couldn’t help but respect the teacher, Professor Sampson; she really knew her stuff. As she put up examples of code to illustrate programming concepts, Pidge noticed something she had never seen before: the professor had a very specific way of formatting the code that made it easier to read. It had never occurred to Pidge to do anything of the sort; she always wrote the bare minimum of code and aesthetics be damned. But Pidge realized she was onto something with this more readable code. It would certainly make it easier to spot mistakes. Pidge was good, but not so good that she didn’t make errors, and her more complicated programs always had at least a few bugs that needed to be corrected. It would be so much simpler to debug if her code was this easy to read.

Pidge paid close attention during the rest of the lecture. She was halfway paying attention to the material the professor was presenting, but mostly watching the formatting of the code, and by the end of the lecture she had figured out some of the key points of the formatting style. Every time a new variable was declared, there was a comment on the same line to define that variable. Whenever there were nested loops, each loop was slightly more indented than the last. Pidge was sure there were other things going on too, but she hadn’t figured them out yet. By the end of the lecture her opinion of the class was completely reversed: what she had assumed would be a waste of time had turned out to be a masterclass in how to write legible code.

The concept of formatting the code in this elegant way was so novel and compelling that Pidge made the decision to step outside her comfort zone and ask the professor about it.

As the other students were leaving, she collected her things in her arms and timidly approached the front of the classroom. “Um, may I ask a question?”

Professor Sampson looked surprised, but then she smiled and said “Of course, go ahead.”

Pidge screwed her courage to the sticking place. “Where did you learn to make code look like that, so easy to read?”

“My Ph.D. advisor. He insisted that everyone in the group write their code this way so that he and anyone else in the group could read it. He even had a style manual to follow, it was thirty pages long! At first I hated it, but eventually I realized it was one of the best things I learned there.”

“Will you be teaching that in this course?”

“I wasn’t planning on it, but if we have extra time at the end of the semester, I’ll add some material on this. I can get you a copy of that style manual, if you’re interested.”

“Thank you! I’d like that very much.”

“Great! I’ll bring you a copy to class next time.”

Pidge wasn’t sure what to say now, so she just smiled and awkwardly turned and left the room.

  
  


At dinner time she found Hunk waiting outside of the cafeteria to meet her. Dinner was burgers, fries, and some cooked veggies, which Pidge wasn’t thrilled about or anything, but it looked decent. Once they had their food, Hunk once again moved to join Lance, who was already sitting at a table by himself. Pidge sighed but didn’t complain; she didn’t want to fight Hunk, not on this, at least.

This time Lance actually smiled and said hello as they sat down. Pidge marveled at how cheerful he looked; if she had embarrassed herself as spectacularly as he had this morning, she would still be hiding in a hoodie, in her room, with the lights off. Maybe Hunk had been right about Lance just needing someone to be friendly to him. 

They settled in and tasted their food. “This cheeseburger is surprisingly good for an institutional cafeteria,” Hunk remarked after a few careful bites. He then tried the vegetables with equal care. “They kinda fucked up the vegetables, though.” He brandished a piece of grayish carrot on his fork and examined it.

_ It’s just food _ , Pidge thought.  _ What’s the big deal? _ “Maybe it’s usually terrible here and they’re just playing tricks on you by making the first day sort of good. It’s a bait and switch.”

“Don’t say that!” Hunk sounded offended.

_ Who cares this much about food? _ she thought.  _ It’s just… food. _ She was there for the classes, not the cuisine. Well, she was also there to find her family, but definitely not for the food. She scrambled to change the subject, turning to Lance.

“So, what is geo-cartography?”

Before Lance could gather himself to reply, her attention was caught by Hunk, whose face had split into a big grin, which he promptly hid behind his cheeseburger, though his eyes still sparkled as he watched his friends.  She was almost surprised when Lance answered her question after a breath.

“It’s about maps of geological features, like hills and stuff. Apparently it’s really useful for navigating cargo ships over different types of terrain.” The words  _ cargo ships  _ fell bitterly from his lips. Pidge wondered how long he would be complaining about his placement.

“Why don’t the ships just fly above all of that stuff?” Pidge asked.

“Fighter pilots do,” Lance griped, “but apparently cargo ships are more energy-efficient near the ground.”

“Why would being close to the ground make a difference?”

“I didn’t understand when he explained that part, something about magnets.”

“I’ve heard about something like that,” interjected Hunk. “Universal terrain magnetic drive. I haven’t studied it, but I’m sure it will come up in one of my engineering courses.”

“How can magnets work on any terrain?” Pidge objected stubbornly. “It doesn’t make any sense.” She turned to glare at Lance as though he personally owed her an answer.

“Don’t ask me, I told you I didn’t understand it. And anyway, the professor said we don’t really have to understand it. We just need to know to stick close to the ground.”

“Well, I need to know this,” said Pidge, making a mental note to look it up when she got to her room.

Hunk laughed. “What does a communications officer need to know about ship propulsion?”

“I just need to know, okay?”

“Yeah, I don’t get why you’re so interested,” added Lance. “It all seemed so dull to me.”

“It doesn’t make sense to me and that bothers me. I just wanna figure it out out.”

“All right,” Lance shrugged. “How you waste your free time is up to you. Speaking of, I’d rather be off throwing a frisbee.” 

“Meh.” Pidge was unimpressed.

“Really? But aren’t you excited about the first ultimate frisbee practice tonight? You said you were gonna sign up for it.”

“No, I’m not excited. I already said I was doing it just because it sounds like the easiest one.”

“Me too,” said Hunk, “I’ve thrown a frisbee like, twice, and it’s not that much fun.” Lance deflated at this, and Hunk suddenly seemed worried that he had insulted him. “But maybe I’ll like it when I try it,” he backpedaled. “I promise I’ll give it a real try.”

“Well, thank you.” Lance gave him small smile. “For my part, I’m super excited. It’ll give me a chance to show off my best quality.”

“What’s that, your big mouth?” Pidge teased.

“No! Obviously it’s my natural sporting talent. The girls will be all over me after they see how far I can throw a frisbee.”

“So it’s a ‘mine’s longer’ contest, is it?”

“No! I mean, maybe? Just wait till you see me.”

She rolled her eyes dramatically. “Can’t wait.”

She wouldn’t have to wait long, not that she cared in the least about seeing Lance play frisbee. Unless he messed up and made a fool of himself. That would be worth seeing. It was already six o’clock and time to leave the dining room, and intramural sports sign-ups were at six-thirty, followed immediately by the first practice.

As she made her way to her room to relax a bit before she had to go to ultimate frisbee, her thoughts turned to Lance. He was annoying, and an idiot, and Pidge wasn’t going to forgive him soon for making her waste fifteen minutes standing uncomfortably on the parade ground. Still, she had to admit he was friendly and earnest; if it wasn’t for the whole lateness catastrophe, she might have even thought he was a decent guy. Hunk seemed to like him at least, and for some reason she found herself wanting to trust Hunk’s taste in friends.

She climbed onto her bed in her single room and folded her legs. She was already starting to like this room, with its large window that let in the afternoon sunlight and made the space feel cozy. The fact that she had hacked the system to get her own private room made it even more satisfying. She had about ten minutes until she needed to get ready for frisbee, and she didn’t feel like looking up that universal terrain magnetic drive thing or doing her calculus homework - it’s not like it was going to be hard anyway - so she just sat back against the wall at the head of the bed and let the events of the day whirl through her mind. She had plenty to think about, and all to soon it was time to go. She put on her ugly exercise uniform, and headed to her first ultimate frisbee practice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! Thanks so much for all the comments and kudos. Keep them coming! I'm really glad so many people are enjoying this story!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Laughing at the Ocean](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13452996) by [WhenIWasAYoungBoy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhenIWasAYoungBoy/pseuds/WhenIWasAYoungBoy)




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